“Whether it was the intention of the retroceding party to await the result of another season in the ships, or to follow the track of the main body to the Great Fish River, is now a matter of conjecture. It seems highly probable that they had purposed revisiting the boat, not only on account of the two men left in charge of it, but also to obtain the chocolate, the five watches, and many other articles which would otherwise scarcely have been left in her.
“The same reasons which may be assigned for the return of this detachment from the main body, will also serve to account for their not having come back to their boat. In both instances they appear to have greatly overrated their strength, and the distance they could travel in a given time.
“Taking this view of the case, we can understand why their provisions would not last them for anything like the distance they required to travel, and why they would be obliged to send back to the ships for more, first taking from the detached party all provisions they could possibly spare. Whether all or any of the remainder of this detached party ever reached their ships is uncertain; all we know is, that they did not revisit the boat, which accounts for the absence of more skeletons in its neighborhood; and the Esquimos report that there was no one alive in the ship when she drifted on shore, and that but one human body was found by them on board of her.
“After leaving the boat we followed an irregular coast-line to the N. and N.W., up to a very prominent cape, which is probably the extreme of land seen from Point Victory by Sir James Ross, and named by him Point Franklin, which name, as a cape, it still retains.”
“I need hardly say,” concludes M’Clintock, “that throughout the whole of my journey along the shores of King William Land I caused a most vigilant lookout to be kept to seaward for any appearance of the stranded ship spoken of by the natives; our search was, however, fruitless in that respect.”
Of Lieutenant Hobson’s most careful and thorough search, M’Clintock writes: “He exercised his discretionary power with sound judgment, and completed his search so well, that in coming over the same ground after him, I could not discover any trace that had escaped him.”
On the 19th of June, M’Clintock once more reached the Fox, where he found Hobson, who had preceded him by five days, sick and unable to walk, having been dragged upon the sledge for the best part of his return journey.
A third sledging party under Captain Young, which had left the 7th of April, was still in the field, and M’Clintock began to feel so great anxiety for their safety that by the 25th of June he set out with four men to search for them. “On the 27th,” he writes, “I sent three of the men back to the ship, and with Thompson and the dogs went on to Pemmican Rock, where, to our great joy, we happily met Young and his party, who had but just returned there, after a long and successful journey.”
It may be briefly stated that Young was in the field seventy-eight days under most trying circumstances. Crossing Franklin Strait to Prince of Wales Land, he traced its shores to its southern termination at Cape Swinburne. He failed in an attempt to cross M’Clintock Channel, owing to the rough ice, but he completed the explorations of this coast beyond Osborn’s farthest to nearly 73° N., also exploring both shores of Franklin Strait between the Fox and Ross’s farthest in 1849 and Brown’s in 1851.